Many Entrecarders participate in order to quickly build their traffic and readership numbers.

There...I said it. I described the elephant in the Entreroom.

And I recognize it's not all about getting more money. There are a number of reasons why bloggers want bigger numbers. But it's hard to ignore that a large segment of the Entrecard community is thinking about how to improve their numbers. Most of the contests are designed to increase readership, comments, links, etc. The Entrecard Shop is full of offers that one can purchase that will result in getting Dropped on, Recommended, Favorited, Stumbled, Dugg, Linked, Commented, Reviewed, Subscribed, and more. Folks, it's just business.

Is this a bad thing?

Not necessarily...but that darn elephant is still standing there.

Is it "selling out" to buy reviews, etc.? Does it make your blog less "real"?

I guess it depends.

So, let's say you're ok with buying all of the above mentioned services, in the name of building up your blogging for money business. Can you do it and look the elephant in the eye or do you have to look the other way to ease your conscience? Is it easier to hold a contest or "pay" people with Entrecard credits than it is to pay them with cold hard cash...even though it has been shown that ECs are convertible to cash? Are you willing to pay someone $1 to subscribe to your email feed and leave you a comment? Is it worth $100 to boost your subscriber base by 100, even if they might not ever read your feed?

To some people the answer is an easy "Yes."

Case in Point: Our resident 13 year old blogger, Mark (Blogging Brainiac), has a promotion going wherein he is "giving away" 100 ECs to the first 70 bloggers who subscribe to his blog. That's roughly 60 cents to $1 depending on the black market rate for ECs. It appears that he is willing to spend $42 to $70 to increase his readership numbers. In essence he is buying numbers.

I decided to help him...25 times. I've got 20 active Entrecard accounts and another 5 that I'm getting ready to launch. This young man wanted numbers and by golly I delivered...'cuz I'm riding the elephant!

Is that too blunt? Do you think Mark will balk at paying me the ECs because I gave him what he wanted...just not in the form he expected? Was he paying for numbers or was he buying fans? If it's the latter then I'm sure I've disappointed him. But if he's able to look at the elephant then he should just send me 2500 credits with a big THANK YOU.

So there you have it. You might be asking why I chose Entrecard Resources for this post, as it just as easily could have gone in The Entrecarder. The answer is that for those of you who can look the elephant in the eye and not blink, I have a resource to offer you: 25 email subscriptions, 25 places to advertise, 25 possible text links...and so on. Efficiency. Economies of scale. Volume discounts.